s known to be a mistress
of the king, and she bore a son, who was ennobled as the Duke of St.
Albans, but who did not live to middle age. Nell Gwyn was much with
Charles; and after his tempestuous scenes with Barbara Villiers, and the
feeling of dishonor which the Duchess of Portsmouth made him experience,
the girl's good English bluntness was a pleasure far more rare than
sentiment.

Somehow, just as the people had come to mistrust "Madam Carwell," so
they came to like Nell Gwyn. She saw enough of Charles, and she liked
him well enough, to wish that he might do his duty by his people; and
she alone had the boldness to speak out what she thought. One day she
found him lolling in an arm-chair and complaining that the people were
not satisfied.

"You can very easily satisfy them," said Nell Gwyn. "Dismiss your women
and attend to the proper business of a king."

Again, her heart was touched at the misfortunes of the old soldiers who
had fought for Charles and for his father during the Civil War, and who
were now neglected, while the treasury was emptied for French favorites,
and while the policy of England itself was bought and sold in France.
Many and many a time, when other women of her kind used their lures
to get jewels or titles or estates or actual heaps of money, Nell Gwyn
besought the king to aid these needy veterans. Because of her efforts
Chelsea Hospital was founded. Such money as she had she shared with the
poor and with those who had fought for her royal lover.

As I have said, she is a historical type of the woman who loses her
physical purity, yet who retains a sense of honor and of honesty
which nothing can take from her. There are not many such examples, and
therefore this one is worth remembering.

Of anecdotes concerning her there are many, but not often has their real
import been detected. If she could twine her arms about the monarch's
neck and transport him in a delirium of passion, this was only part of
what she did. She tried to keep him right and true and worthy of
his rank; and after he had ceased to care much for her as a lover he
remembered that she had been faithful in many other things.

Then there came the death-bed scene, when Charles, in his inimitable
manner, apologized to those about him because he was so long in dying.
A far sincerer sentence was that which came from his heart, as he cried
out, in the very pangs of death:

"Do not let poor Nelly starve!"

MAURICE OF SA